Christian Urrutia, a candidate in the crowded Democratic primary campaign in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, set up a lectern on the promenade overlooking the Merrimack River in Manchester.
He invited the press to the event, and brought a poster outlining his competitors’ positions on health care.
“I want to address, what I believe, is one of the great moral questions of this election,” he told reporters.
Urrutia then laid out his vision for health insurance in America, and challenged his rivals in the race to do the same. Urrutia, a former Air BnB executive, is backing Medicare for All, a government managed and financed health insurance system that progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also support.
With less than three weeks until the Sept. 8 Democratic primary, Urrutia criticized two of his opponents by name: Maura Sullivan, a veteran and former Obama administration official, for backing a public option program, which would allow individuals to pay into Medicare on the open market; and Stefany Shaheen, a former Portsmouth city councilor, who he accused of failing to clearly state her positions on health care.
Medicare for All, modeled after government-managed health care systems found in many other countries, Urrutia said, offers benefits that the private sector-based American model can’t match.
“You empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices where we're getting ripped off by the pharmaceutical industries,” he said. “There's enormous bureaucratic waste in our private health care system today.”
He criticized Sullivan, and Shaheen in particular, for failing to back that vision.
“I got to be frank with you,” he said. “I spent a year on the campaign trail with Stefany Shaheen. I still don't know her health care position.”
Shaheen’s position, though, is laid out clearly on her website: She supports Medicare for All.
During her own campaign swing in Manchester just a few hours after Urrutia spoke with reporters, she reiterated her support for the program. She added that she wanted to keep “every option on the table” — including a public option.
“Whatever we can do to build a successful system that's going to work,” said Shaheen during her swing through the Granite State Candy Shoppe.
Read more of NHPR's coverage of the 2026 midterm elections here.
Shaheen went on to say that she also supports expanding Medicare, in the short term, to include vision, hearing and dental for seniors. She also talked about restoring the cuts to the Affordable Care Act, which have squeezed people off private health insurance.
Health care, including her advocacy for her daughter who lives with Type 1 diabetes, has been central to Shaheen's stump speech since launching her campaign.
Sullivan, who ran for this same seat eight years ago, made her own pitch Wednesday night inside a Manchester brewery. She called health care the “number one crisis” facing voters, and said creating a public option would offer a cheaper alternative than private insurance.
“It’s crushing working families,” she said. “A dad on the Seacoast recently told me he couldn’t afford to take his kid to a pediatrician. It is crushing our seniors.”
Sullivan, who spoke during a campaign stop with New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherril, said that she wanted “put more money back in people’s pockets.”
Hampton selectboard chair Carleigh Beriont, who is also running in the 1st Congressional District’s Democrat primary, is another Medicare for All candidate, as is state Rep. Heath Howard.
Sarah Chadzyinski, a nonprofit executive, backs a single-payer system and, in the short-term, having the federal government “take over risk insurance to lower premiums,” among other changes.
Whether or not voters necessarily make their choice on this specific issue is anyone’s guess. A poll in February from UNH found that health care was far, far down the list of top concerns, with housing costs, taxes and education concerns the top issues.
